If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

lol.... some issue about being biased.. if I vote for my own piece I'll feel like an overconfident shmuck and I can't not vote for my piece since I do really like my stuff... which does make me an overconfident shmuck.... hahaha.... in short... I think I might choose not to vote, or do I not have a choice?

Why don't you set up a poll in the actual contest threads? It can look like this:

How would you rate this story?:3 - I really enjoyed reading it!2 - It was okay; not the greatest, but still good.1 - It was terrible. There were lots of things I didn't like.

Of course, at the end of the contest you'd have to tally up the results (by adding them all together and getting some sort of average), but whatever. You'd have to get an average either way. xD

This would be easier than making people remember the number of their favorite story and then state WHY they like the story. I think getting people to write why they did things is the big turn-off here, and why people aren't voting.

Plus (if the point of them writing is for the authors to get feedback), you can always open the threads at the end of the contest and people can post their opinions/compliments/critiques there. (^^) It'd be easier for the authors too, 'cuz then they'd know that all the comments being posted are for them and them only.

I'm doing it this way, because when I had avatar contests, and poetry contests like that, people would just tell their friends to hit number x for their entry. We also had people signing on multiple accounts to vote for themselves.

The forum's system for voting isn't the best ever. The best one I found so far to be, would be having people vote, and then me tallying the thread's comments.

Plus, I also want to make sure people aren't just voting randomly or for their friends, by making them post why they voted for each entry.

There is! But, a lot of users can just restart their internet and get a new IP. I was hoping to bug Aaron to make something to use to vote, but I couldn't find anything that was ultra amazing.

I did find a voting site, where you can start a poll and have people vote, where you can't vote more than once from an IP, but I wouldn't be able to see all the ip's to see what are similar or some users.

Hmmm, this is pretty tough to solve. On the one hand you have people who wish to remain anonymous with their votes and on the other you have to ensure people don't SPAM votes. I'm not sure how the system works and have no idea about the technical aspects of the forum but I've thought up about a couple of ways to strike a balance between the two problems :-

a) Send all votes to the mods. The mods will count. The good part to this is that you still know who is voting and who is spamming, plus the writers won't know who did or did not vote for their story. The bad? A lot of work for the mods, if indeed this increases the number of votes. One other problem that could arise is that the writers start demanding a recount because they don't see the votes.

b) What about removing the "why" description for all the aspects? If a writer really wanted to they could create multiple accounts and cast in their votes with reasons fully stated anyway. I think it could get a little tough for the less experienced writer to fully articulate their opinions. They may be able to say whether they like it or not, but they wouldn't be able to advice which parts or what about it they liked unless they can properly and accurately identify the reasons.